Anime Punch! announces musical and industry guests

Known as "The Armageddicon , Anime Punch ! 2006 is the new three-day
Anime and Japanese Culture Convention designed to provide a completely
new convention going experience. A.P. prides itself on having the most
unique programming around and strives to strike perfect balance between
the most intellectual panels and discussions with entertaining and
enjoyable events, all while providing the most fun atmosphere of any
convention yet. Our Annual Events include Concerts, Panels, a Masquerade
24-hour showing rooms, Dance, Swimsuit and Video Game contests and much,
much more. We promise to take any fan's suggestion and do our best to make
it happen!

Our esteemed academic guests include Lawrence Eng, a PHD candidate in
otaku studies and a frequent contributor to the CJAS newsletter, who is
well known for the website "Thought Experiments Lain"; Lien Fan Shen,
an artist of shoujo and yaoi manga who has five works published in
Taiwan and is currently researching postmodern trends in animation; Richard
Torrance, who received his BA in Asian languages and literature from
the University of Washington and his PhD in East Asian Languages and
Literatures from Yale. Kuwai-sensei, an OSU Japanese Language Professor and
author, who will be speaking on the differences between the Japanese
spoken in anime and the Japanese spoken by real native speakers and many
more.
Our Academic Guests will be joining our exciting Musical Guests of
Honor Singer/Songwriter Steve Conte and popular fan-band The Spoony Bards
at the con.

Steve Conte is an acclaimed musician and guitarist and a member of the
legendary New York Dolls. He has worked with world-famous Japanese
composer Yoko Kanno on numerous projects, including "Brain Powrd", "Cowboy
Bebop", "RahXephon: The Movie" and �Wolf�s Rain�. Conte has also
produced music for many television shows, including Smallville, Queer Eye for
the Straight Guy, Angel, and JAG. His band Crown Jewels was named by
Musician Magazine as one of the Top Ten Unsigned Bands in North America.
Needless to say, the guy knows how to put on a show, and he'll be doing
a concert at Anime Punch!

The Spoony Bards formed at Anime Central 2004 when a group of musicians
have come to be known for their ability to assemble any available
combination of vocal and instrumental talents to create a relaxed musical
atmosphere at anime conventions. Since then, 'Bards have expanded their
repertoire and have grown in popularity to become a famed network of
musicians, known for playing videogame and anime music by request for days
at a time at conventions. The Spoony Bards will provide a great
atmosphere for all Anime Punch con goers and are always willing to let anyone
join in on the musical festivities.

Our Industry guest include professional Voice Actors Crispin Freeman
(Akira, Digimon, Wolfs Rain, Last Exile) and Joshua Seth (Angel
Sanctuary, Xenosaga, Slayers, Witch Hunter Robin, as well as famous Alucard from
Hellsing) who will host panels, answer questions about their craft and
give tips to inspiring actors on how to break into the industry).

Anime Punch! will be held March 31st to April 2nd of 2006 at the
Holiday Inn Columbus/Worthington Hotel (175 Hutchinson Avenue) in Central
Ohio.

Travel back in time (and maybe have your gender swapped) to seven different periods of Japanese history, all from the comfort of your couch.― The history of Japanese civilization is expansive, predating the Common Era by 10,000 years (the Jomon period). There's much more ground to cover compared to what kids get in U.S. history classes in high school, which rarely cover anything before the Boston T...

Junji Ito's death-stench horror gets the deluxe treatment with a new hardcover omnibus, but the subject matter might not work for everyone.― Junji Ito is inarguably one of the masters of horror manga, utilizing both horror (physical revulsion) and terror (psychological reaction) to create gut-churning tales of the world gone mad. To a degree, he carries this out in his two-volume series Gyo from 200...

Voice actor/director/professional Dungeons & Dragons player Liam O'Brien returns to the podcast after a 5-year hiatus to discuss his roles in Fate/Zero and Sailor Moon, along with the landscape for anime voice acting now and what it's like to be Gollum.― ANNCast Episode 234: Podcastoes O'Brien Get the Flash Player to see this player. Voice actor/director/professional Dungeons & Dragons player Liam ...

If you went to an anime convention this summer or have used the internet lately, you may notice anime fans seem to have fallen in love with Steven Universe. Why? Because the show loves them right back.― If you've been to an anime convention in the past year, you've probably seen colorful, gem-studded cosplay like this filling the hallways. Photo credit links: top left, top right, bottom left, bottom...

If you've got questions for the director of the high-flying fantasy series The Pilot's Love Song, we've potentially got answers for you!― We've been given the opportunity to interview The Pilot's Love Song director Toshimasa Suzuki, and we need your help! NISA, who will be releasing the fantasy action drama The Pilot's Love Song on bluray September 22nd, asked for fan questions for Mr. Suzuki, whos...

Bee-Train's 2001 girls-with-guns classic returns on Blu-Ray, and holds up surprisingly well, despite some mediocre animation.― Not all older series deserve the Blu-Ray treatment. For some it is because the show just isn't as iconic as people might like to think, while for others it's because the quality was never BD worthy in the first place. Noir, fortunately, does hold up well enough that its tran...

Egypt Arc is JoJo in peak condition, as memorable and engaging an adventure as you could hope for. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is back.― When we last left our heroes, they'd just arrived on the shores of Egypt, escaping the literal jaws of defeat in order to finally save Jotaro's mother. The journey there had been a lengthy and sometimes inconsistent one, with their various adventures indeed being plen...

The creator of the hit manga, recently adapted into a popular anime series, talks about her inspirations, how she got her start, and what it's like to watch your manga become a TV show.― As you might guess from the story, the main character of the story is a high school roughneck named Ryu Yamada. Yamada meets cute, quiet, and studious Urara Shiraishi, who is his complete opposite in almost every wa...